


all my love is gift-wrapped

by pirateygoodness



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Bickering, Corsetry, F/F, Sharing a Bed, Snowed In, Undressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-11 02:42:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12925605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pirateygoodness/pseuds/pirateygoodness
Summary: Sara sighs back. She's got a room here, at an inn with a tavern downstairs that'll give them food and probably whisky, and if Ava would just stop being ajerkthis could be an okay night. "Look," Sara says. "You can stay here and wait until my team picks us up, or you can head out there in your fancy 2017 suit in Victorian London and enjoy the snow."





	all my love is gift-wrapped

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of a holiday fic prompt: _i know we hate each other but it’s christmas eve and your flight was cancelled please come inside_
> 
> Title from Sia's "Sunshine"

"Come on," Sara says. "It's Christmas Eve, you're not going back out their on your own." 

"It's not actually Christmas Eve," Ava says, somehow managing to roll her eyes in a way that involves her entire body. "Did Rip teach you _anything_ about relative time, or did he just hand you the keys to a time ship and tell you not to scratch the paint?"

Sara bristles. They've reached a relative detente, enough to work together sometimes, but Ava is still as irritating as ever and it's taking a good portion of Sara's self control not to just deck her. Her hand flexes at her side; she focuses on uncurling each finger, forcibly relaxing. "Well, it's Christmas Eve here," Sara finally says, voice full of cloying, angry sweetness. 

Ava aside, Sara doesn't actually mind the wait. There are worse things to be than stuck in a perfect, Dickensian winter, and it's not like they're really trapped. The team knows exactly where they are, it's just snowing too hard for them to pick up Sara until morning. But Ava's worked into a state, angry that her time courier broke in the struggle to fix the anachronism and angry that she has to spend her time with Sara. Although, now that Sara thinks about it, she's never seen Ava have any other emotions. Maybe anger is the only emotion she's got. 

"Whatever," Ava huffs. She leans against the tiny, wobbly desk for one precarious moment before thinking better of it and sitting on the equally wobbly chair with a sigh. 

Sara sighs back. She's got a room here, at an inn with a tavern downstairs that'll give them food and probably whisky, and if Ava would just stop being a _jerk_ this could be an okay night. "Look," Sara says. "You can stay here and wait until my team picks us up, or you can head out there in your fancy 2017 suit in Victorian London and enjoy the snow." 

Ava doesn't reply with anything but a frosty glare. She's scowling, and Sara can't tell what she wants to do but there's a part of her that's tempted to do _something_ to shock that look off of Ava's face. She thinks about it for a moment, realizes that she's actually licking her lips and that's not - she's not that desperate tonight. 

"I'm going to go downstairs and get something to eat. You want anything?" Sara asks. Ava just crosses her arms and sighs. "Suit yourself." 

 

Sara goes downstairs. She's still dressed in something close to era-appropriate: a skirt that's actually four skirts layered on top of each other, a bodice over a corset that's digging into her ribs, then a chemise and drawers and her modern underwear. Her bodice is a little lower-cut than it should be, and she draws a few more stares than she'd like as she ventures into the bar. She manages to tell the tavern keeper a convincing enough story about her "sister," who's fallen ill upstairs and on Christmas to boot, that she gets away with a plate of roast beef and cheese and bread enough for two, plus a tankard of something called gin punch that packs a significant kick. 

Ava's still sulking when she gets back. 

The only table in the room is occupied by Ava and her foul mood, so Sara sits on the floor with her back to the bed, sets her tray in front of the coal stove that's giving off most of the room's heat. "There's more than enough to share," Sara says. "If you want." 

The food isn't great, but Sara spent most of her day running across rooftops and taking down time pirates and she's absolutely ravenous. It does the job of filling her up, and she's eaten more than half her share when she hears the unmistakeable growl of Ava's stomach from behind her. "Come on," Sara says. "Eat something." 

Ava sighs heavily, but she does slide off of the chair and onto the floor. She sits cautiously, her posture unimpeachable, but Sara doesn't miss the way she tears at the bread first, then the cheese, then finally a small, tentative bite of the roast beef. "This situation is still absurd," Ava says around a mouthful of dinner. "And if I get cholera from eating dubious Victorian tavern food, I'm taking you down with me." 

Sara doesn't dignify that with a reply. She quirks her eyebrows, lets her face make an expression that hopefully conveys some of what she's feeling: that unique blend of frustration and anger that only seems to come out when Ava's around. The gin punch is cloyingly sweet, and it burns a little as it goes down which is probably a sign that it's been cut with some less-than-palatable ingredients. But it warms Sara from the inside out, makes it a little easier to deal with the way that Ava's glowering at her from across the tiny room. 

Sara finishes eating first. She slides the tankard of punch across the floor to Ava, who makes a face but takes a long sip nonetheless. "So," Sara says. "I'm going to go to sleep for a few hours."

Ava huffs. "You would go to sleep." 

"Was your plan to just spend the whole night glaring at me, or. . .?"

Ava mumbles something into the tankard of gin punch and takes another long swig. Sara doesn't catch her words but the tone speaks for itself and she has to remind herself, once again, that she probably shouldn't get into a physical fight with Ava tonight. When Sara speaks again, her voice is dangerously even. "Do you have any better suggestions for ways that we can pass the time? Because my team's not going to be here until morning no matter how grouchy you get."

Ava starts, blushes, looks pointedly at the ceiling. "I do not," she says primly. 

"Cool," Sara says. 

Sara takes one more swig of punch, and gets up. She sits on the bed, thinks about lying down dressed as she is and if her skirts end up occupying the whole bed, well, that's Ava's problem. But her corset is pinching, harder than before now that she's eaten, and she needs it off so much that she can hardly stand it. She thinks, for a moment, about cutting herself out of it to save herself from speaking to Ava again. 

"Look, can you -?" Sara says. 

Ava looks up, catches the way Sara's gesturing to her back and the lacing there. "Sure," Ava says, her voice suddenly soft. Her face is red, almost like she's blushing, and Sara can't tell if that's the gin punch or sitting too close to the fire or something else entirely. 

There are three layers of laces to Sara's outfit: one for her bodice, one for the skirt, and then another set for her corset. Ava starts on them; works at each set of outer laces with soft, sure movements. The skirt falls to the floor around Sara's ankles, and she feels the outer set of laces at her back loosen but it's a two-person effort to get her out of the bodice with its tight sleeves and odd lines. Ava moves to Sara's front, opens the bodice fully at the back and helps her wriggle out of each sleeve, one at a time. "There," Ava says. 

She's looking anywhere but Sara's face; eyes trained first on her chest with its low-cut chemise and corset, then her legs, then the ceiling. "Turn around again," she says. "I can do the corset, now." 

Sara can feel Ava's touch as she works at the lacing to her corset. Her hands feel a bit shakier, and Sara's chemise is thin enough that she can feel Ava's work her finger underneath each lace, loosening it from the centre out towards the top and bottom. Sara lets out an audible sigh of relief as Ava gets to the lacing around her chest. The skin at her ribs and under her breasts feels numb, crushed for too long. As the corset falls away, Sara slides her hands up her chemise to rub at the sore spots it left behind. There are palpable indentations from the boning and she rubs at them, slowly working sensation back into her skin. 

From behind her, she hears Ava cough. She turns to find Ava red-faced, arms crossed over her chest and an unusual expression on her face. It's not quite a scowl, something closer to embarrassment and she's looking absolutely anywhere but Sara. Despite losing so many layers, Sara's still fully dressed by modern standards: the chemise is fairly close to a tank top, the drawers are absurdly ruffled and puff out at her hips but they cover about as much as a pair of men's shorts. "Are you okay?" Sara asks. 

Ava makes that face again, and her voice is a little too loud as she answers, "Of course." 

There's something off, but Sara's tired and the gin punch is hitting her harder than she expected. She can feel the weight of her eyelids, and nothing seems more inviting than bed and rest and a few hours of sleep before the next crisis hits them. "Look, I don't mind sharing," she says, indicating the bed. "The chair looks pretty uncomfortable." 

"Absolutely not," Ava replies, tone clipped and sharp. 

"Okay, well. Suit yourself." 

Sara curls into bed, positions herself against the wall facing outward. The bed's in the far corner, and from this angle she can see the whole room: the door, the desk, and Ava in the little chair beside it. 

There's still light, a little from the coal fireplace and more from the oil lamp on the desk. By the time Sara stirs, the oil lamp has burned down. She hears the rustle of fabric, the gentle thump of two shoes being kicked off. The bed dips in front of her, and suddenly her arms are full of Ava. 

The bed is tiny, a double bed by Victorian standards that's closer to what Sara would call a single. Ava's not large, but the fact of another body sharing the mattress requires more than a little adjusting. Ava wriggles backward - to find space, Sara assumes - but she ends up grinding her hips backward, fitting her ass flush with Sara's pelvis. She's down to her own bottom layer: a bra and underwear and her uniform-issue shirt, unbuttoned. Sara doesn't think about Ava that way - at least she tries not to think of Ava that way _too often_ \- but she's also not made of stone. Her body reacts at the feel of Ava, her warmth and solidity around Sara's front and those hips pressed in just the right place.

Sara's arm flexes, her brain just awake enough to process her desire. She pulls Ava nearer, instinctively. Ava lets out an audible gasp, as if burned, and shoves her elbow back hard into Sara's bicep. "Just because I'm here doesn't mean I want to cuddle," Ava says, sharply. 

Sara shoves forward and Ava shifts her weight, rolling onto her back. There's just enough light that Sara can see the flat plane of her stomach, the swell of her breasts over the cups of her bra. She does her best not to get ideas, as they jostle together, adjusting. Ava ends up on her back, taking up most of the space, and Sara curls up on her side as close to the wall as she can manage. It's not quite enough space, and despite their best efforts they can't keep from touching: Sara's legs are wrapped around Ava's thigh and her arm is just barely brushing her shoulder. She shoves at Ava gently, trying for a little more room. "I was here first, remember?" she says.  
"How could I forget," Ava replies. 

They lay in the dark together for what feels like hours; Ava on alert and clearly not sleeping. Sara does her best, but it's hard to hold herself still while also relaxing into sleep. Eventually, the world goes dark. 

 

Sara wakes to Mick's voice in her ear. Her communicator is still working, and the low, gruff sound is more than enough to pull her out of sleep. "Hey, Sara. Time to wake up" 

She paws at her earpiece, gently. "Just give me a minute," she mumbles.

Her face is resting on something warm, and there's something solid around her shoulders, pulling her further into the soft heat. She shakes her head, half-nuzzling against her pillow, and is rewarded with a soft sigh from someplace above her head. 

Sara opens her eyes, and it becomes extremely clear that her head is not resting on a pillow at all. Instead, she's got her face tucked into the valley of Ava's cleavage, nuzzling into the tops of her breasts. Ava's arm is slung around her shoulders, her hand slipped casually underneath Sara's chemise to rest against her bare back. Sara shifts, realizes that she's positioned herself so that Ava's thigh is trapped between her legs, pressing gently into her groin and it's just - nice. Warm and intimate and nice, but also clearly a recipe for another shouting match with Ava. 

"Hey," Sara whispers. She tries to find a somewhat-appropriate place to touch Ava, ends up running her hand along Ava's side, tickling her ribs. "We have to get up." 

Ava groans, pulls Sara closer. "Five more minutes." 

Of course she'd be a heavy sleeper. Of course. Sara sits up, ready to try again, when there's a bang on the other side of their door and Mick's voice. "Sara," he growls. "Come on." 

By the time the door opens, Sara's sitting up and mostly presentable but Ava, still asleep, starts at the sound. She practically levitates off the bed, realizes that she's mostly in her underwear and lets out a very dignified, very professional squeak. 

"Good morning," Mick says. 

Sara rolls her eyes, shoves Mick back into the hallway. "We'll be right with you," she says. 

He's laughing as the door shuts and Sara's trying not to catch on to it but this is, after all, a little funny. She bites the inside of her cheek. 

By the time she turns back, Ava's mostly dressed, sliding her shoes on as she finishes buttoning her trousers. "The standards of professional conduct on this mission have been _abysmal_ ," she spits, as she walks toward the door with her head held high. 

Sara follows. She manages to keep herself from laughing until they make it to the hallway, where Mick is waiting. He nods his head, tips two fingers toward her in a mock-salute. "Merry Christmas, Agent Sharpe," he says. "And to you, Captain." 

Sara punches him on the arm, says, "Knock it off." 

But she can't keep the smile off of her face. Just like she can't quite forget the way it felt to wake up with Ava pressed against her.


End file.
